


Holding Out For A Hero

by river_soul



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:06:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1713308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/river_soul/pseuds/river_soul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheppard wasn’t going to admit to anyone he’d been blindsided by scientist Barbie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding Out For A Hero

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the peddler of crack (aka [](http://koalathebear.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://koalathebear.livejournal.com/)**koalathebear** ) because she's a pretty cool cat.

Like most things in John Sheppard’s life, a practical training session for the civilian scientists onboard the Daedalus sounded like a nice, harmless idea at first.

He let himself get talked into it by the pretty bridge engineer, Mandy, over lunch. John might have considered saying no because he was busy and pretty much excelled at not going beyond what was required of him, but Mandy was blonde, built and John Sheppard could safely say she was the only woman he’d ever met who made a jump suit look sexy.

That jump suit, John would later reflect, would be the beginning of all his problems.

It all started when he _wasn’t_ staring at the zipper of her flight suit and admiring the great view of her cleavage. She asked him something and suddenly he found himself saying “Sure,” before he really had a chance to process what had been asked.

“Great!” Mandy told him excitedly. “I can’t wait to tell the girls.”

“What?” Sheppard tried, but she was already trotting off to the table of Daedalus scientist who immediately began to smile in his direction.

Sheppard might have recanted with Mandy but Lorne had been watching a few feet away, face impassive in the way that said _I value my career._ Sheppard wasn’t going to admit to anyone he’d been blindsided by scientist Barbie.

Weir had been suspicious when he first brought the idea up but Sheppard had been on Atlantis long enough to get around that problem with a well-placed omission and convincing smile. “Very well,” was the only thing she said, using the tone that Rodney usually got before she gave him a look, the same one she favored when he brought home Ronon. _This is your responsibility._

John organized the training session quickly, mostly because he wanted to get it over with. He split the scientists between his gate teams and gave them parts of the city, which had already been cleared, to ‘explore.’ He’d sent Ronon and Teyla to devise traps and problems to work through and even begrudgingly let Rodney help after he swore not to make the tasks too difficult. Rodney made the newest arrivals cry last time around. Sheppard didn’t want a repeat of Dr. Mullins, regardless of how hot she’d been, sobbing into his shoulder after completely freaking out on him.

  
\--

How exactly John ended up with Lindsey Novak, the walking disaster, he never knew. He’d been the one to design the teams and he remembered explicitly giving her to Lorne who he imagined was more tactical and patient. Sheppard liked to think of himself as pretty tolerant, but had already used his weekly allowance of patience with Rodney on their last mission. He had been hoping to advance his cause of having blonde Mandy and her fantastic flight suit accompany him on his day off.

Obviously he was being punished.

He was getting ready to send her back to Lorne, to anyone really, when he realized that she looked vaguely unhappy too, which wasn’t the response he was used to getting. _Weird._ When he opened his mouth, she jerked a thumb in Lorne’s direction. “He said I should go with you. Dr. Weir’s orders,” she told him when he looked like he was about to object.

“Huh,” Sheppard said and watched Lindsey struggle with her tack vest for a moment.

“I can’t,” she started, “I think my tack vest is broken!” she complained just as her pack landed on the floor with a loud thump, supplies spilling out in the corridor.

Sheppard really felt like shooting something.

  
\--

Lindsey, Sheppard discovered, was an overly cautious little thing, but without a qualm when it came to back talking. She’d already yelled at him twice for touching things in the scientific labs without her approval. “I’m trying to take this seriously,” she told him. For a moment John almost felt like smiling just because of the earnest look on her face.

“I understand that,’ he started, “but I designed this course. I think I know what I can and can’t touch,” he told her with his charming smile as he leaned into the control panel, finger hovering over the access panel.

“I really don’t think-” she said again, but it was already too late as his hand swept over the board, the floor below them opened up and the last thing Lindsey remembered was John Sheppard’s muttered _fuck me_ before they hit bottom.

  
\--

“I don’t understand,” Lindsey was ranting, punctuating every word with a violent stab at the heavily shielded control panel, “why you military men can’t stop touching things! When I say, ‘hey don’t touch that’, it isn’t an invitation for you to paw at it!” She told him with increasing frustration. “Has all that hair gel finally made you retarded?” She asked him and Sheppard, probably since the first meeting with McKay, was actually stunned into silence.

He’d opened his mouth to apologize, not wanting to escalate the situation but like most of his conversations with Rodney he found himself reverting back to the standard _I’m in charge routine_ that she hadn’t bought into at all. He wound up sitting in the corner, nursing a throbbing ass as she muttered to herself and the control panel.

Engineers, as it turned out, swore worse than Marines.

  
\--

“Any luck ?” Sheppard asked, looking at his watch. They’d been in the room for nearly two hours. Two hours! Hadn’t someone noticed he was missing? He was the CO for god sakes!

“No,” she admitted as he watched her pace the length of the small room they’d ( _you_ Lindsey had corrected when he tried talk to her earlier) gotten themselves trapped in. “I’m very good with Asguard and Goa'uld technology. Ancient devices? Not so much. Sorry,” she apologized and there was a moment of awkwardness when they were just staring at each other before he smiled and she returned it a little hesitantly.

After a minute she joined him on the floor, pulling her knees to her chest. “I didn’t mean to yell at you,” she said and Sheppard thought she seemed sincere.

“Don’t worry about it.” He told her patting her knee awkwardly before clearing his throat. “I wasn’t very patient either,” he admitted, thinking back. God this was awkward and Sheppard had never done that very well.

“I thought you were just a dumb jock,” she said after a moment and then laughed. He looked at her strangely. “You um, you hear things about people,” she vaguely explained.

“Yeah,” Sheppard said, drawing the word out as he watched her. He was pretty sure what rumor she was referring to. “My men know where we were, it’s only a matter of time before we’re found. Your little grey friend can beam us out and we’ll be up in time for dinner,” He assured her.

“They’re not going to be able to beam us out,” Lindsey told him, face contorting comically. “We’re too close to the star drives, they’ll be too much interference for Hermiod to get a lock.”

“Interference?” Sheppard questioned.

“Remember when Atlantis had that last bomb scare and the generators were rigged to overload by powering up the Star Drives?” She asked and continued on when he nodded. “They were able to store that partial charge in the buffer system the ancients built and well, actually we’ve trying to study it because it has amazing regenerative ability but anyway,” She said waving her hand in a manner that made Sheppard smile despite himself. “We’re very close to the Star Drives and they’re giving off enough energy that the Asguard beams won’t be able to punch through it.”

“Huh.” Sheppard said. “So we’re screwed?”

“Pretty much.” Lindsey offered with a nod and Sheppard felt like he should be saying something encouraging.

“Well I’m sure someone will come soon,” he started, trying to sound certain, just as the radio crackled to life. “See?” he asked her. “This is Sheppard,” he said, answering the jumbled call.

“John?” Teyla’s voice questioned. “Are you well?”

“We ran into a little problem, but we’re fine,” Sheppard admitted. “Let me talk to Rodney. I think he might be able to get us out.”

There was a moment of silence when both Sheppard and Lindsey were just staring at each other before Rodney’s voice finally burst through. “Colonel,” the scientist said and Sheppard thought he even sounded smug. “I see you’ve managed to get yourself trapped in the city _again_.” Beside him Lindsey made a face at McKay’s tone and rolled her eyes.

Sheppard was starting to like her already.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Also, new [tumblr](http://river-soul.tumblr.com/) friends are always welcome!


End file.
